Atmospheric Flow Development and Associated Changes in Turbulent Sensible Heat Flux over a Patchy Mountain Snow Cover

In this study, the small-scale boundary layer dynamics and the energy balance over a fractional snow cover are numerically investigated. The atmospheric boundary layer flows over a patchy snow cover were calculated with an atmospheric model (Advanced Regional Prediction System) on a very high spatial resolution of 5 m. The numerical results revealed that the development of local flow patterns and the relative importance of boundary layer processes depend on the snow patch size distribution and the synoptic wind forcing. Energy balance calculations for quiescent wind situations demonstrated that well-developed katabatic winds exerted a major control on the energy balance over the patchy snow cover, leading to a maximum in the mean downward sensible heat flux over snow for high snow-cover fractions. This implies that if katabatic winds develop, total melt of snow patches may decrease for low snow-cover fractions despite an increasing ambient air temperature, which would not be predicted by most hydrological models. In contrast, stronger synoptic winds increased the effect of heat advection on the catchment's melt behavior by enhancing the mean sensible heat flux over snow for lower snow-cover fractions. A sensitivity analysis to grid resolution suggested that the grid size is a critical factor for modeling the energy balance of a patchy snow cover. The comparison of simulation results from coarse (50 m) and fine (5 m) horizontal resolutions revealed a difference in the spatially averaged turbulent heat flux over snow of 40%-70% for synoptic cases and 95% for quiescent cases.